Being a female born in the 90′s, I owned several barbies and my mother collected them as I grew up! Although I do agree with Masaki’s blog post regarding the negative ethics surrounding the unhealthy proportions of Barbie, there is much more to the Barbie brand and campaign.

Internally, Mattel (the makers of Barbie, Hot Wheels and other popular toys) is a strong company with a large diversification of products. Looking at the doll market, Barbie is an original product with strong brand awareness and loyally, therefore making the entry of competitors rather difficult.

Externally, Barbie is a brand that has recognized different culture expectations and beliefs when launching new products in different parts of the world. For example, the introduction of Barbies in India, where “a sari-clad slender doll adorned with jewels and make-up to match” was launched and proved to be popular.

When looking at demographics, Barbie has successful introduced new products to keep up with changing social tends associated with changing times and different cohorts. For example, when Baby Boomers were 3-12 years old, traditional Barbie dolls were appealing. Now, although some Generation Y children still do find the traditional dolls a joy to play with, Barbie has branched out to offer Barbie in ways that are keeping up with social and technological trends. For example, by brand licensing with Leapfrog, Barbie can now be enjoyed digitally by the same 3-12 year old demographic but in a new and exciting way.

But it is also this same opportunity, to offer their product to the world in new and innovative ways, which has caused a lot of controversy. Such as, The Sun Gold Malibu line which included dolls that were dressed in exposing bathing suits and followed the extreme tanned craze.Or the tattooed Barbie that Mattel introduced in 2011, which has followed the popular glamorization of tattoos. This makes me wonder if by the time I have children, the Barbie dolls I enjoyed will be non-existent as times continue to progress and Mattel continues to innovate.